Why Your Brand Needs a Recognizable Personality and How To Create One
Behind every successful business is a well-developed brand personality. Establishing a brand personality is important since this is how consumers create an emotional attachment to your company. Personality is what conveys your brand’s message to your audience, it’s literally how you speak to them.
Consumers instantly form an opinion when they are first introduced to your brand. From there, they decide if they trust your company and want to work with you. Keep in mind, this is also how consumers will remember you at a later point when they’re in need of a service or product you happen to offer. You’ll be the first name to pop up in their head why they need something – which is exactly what your brand should be striving for.
Once consumers know your personality – just like they would a personal friend – they will instantly recognize, trust, and want to be associated with your brand. So you can see why your brand’s personality is just as important as any product you sell or service you offer. Implement these steps and take the time to develop your personality so you can speak to and connect with consumers.
1. Develop Your Brand’s Identity
First and foremost, figure out who you want your brand to be and how you want it to be seen by the public. Develop a distinguished brand identity by focusing on your target audience and creating buyer personas to get an idea of who you are marketing to. Then, you can create your brand’s voice and tone.
Knowing your audience will help decide what your company’s voice will sound like. Your voice is how your brand comes across to readers and is one of the key ways to add personality. Like your personality, your voice never changes.
However, your tone changes based on the situation. Tone is the underlying emotion that comes across in content. For example, think about how difficult it is to determine a person’s tone over text message or email.
2. Show Consumers What Separates You From Similar Brands
Once your identity has been established, determine what makes you unique to customers. Use this to your advantage to develop brand personality and show consumers why you’re different (and better) than the competition. Start by monitoring your competition to get insight into what makes you stand out.
3. Use Creative Design To Show Off Your Personality
Design is another form of communication that shows off a brand’s personality. Avoid choosing generic logos and visuals on your website, social media channels, and content. Hire a professional graphic designer to create a custom logo that will showcase the voice you’ve created for your brand. Don’t forget to pick a color palette that adds to the overall feeling you want to evoke in consumers every time they see your brand. To get really technical, look into color psychology and choose colors that can influence consumer’s perceptions of your company.
4. Don’t Overlook Your ‘About Us’ Section
A small, but important, detail many businesses don’t give much attention to is the ‘About Us’ section on their website. Add an ‘About Us’ page that tells your company’s story. However, this won’t be the same as a mission statement or your company’s timeline. Remember to be human, and show audiences that behind products, services, and content are people, too. Always be transparent and genuine when sharing about your company and the employees. Read HubSpot’s list of the best ‘About Us’ examples to learn how to leave a lasting impression.
5. Keep Your Personality Consistent
Once you’ve made your personality recognizable to your customer, don’t confuse them by producing random content that is irrelevant to your voice and personality. Doing so can come off as untrustworthy, which is a guaranteed way to lose customer loyalty. To avoid losing trust, implement brand guidelines for employees in every department to follow so the sales, marketing, and customer service teams are using the same voice to communicate with consumers. Your brand’s personality will come across strong and clear if there is a consistent identity across every facet of your brand.
Brand Personality Examples:
See for yourself how a well-developed brand personality can evoke emotions in consumers with our breakdown of four individual company’s use of voice.
Kiawah Island Real Estate
This real estate company is located in Kiawah Island, South Carolina. They have developed a strong voice that is sophisticated, elegant and evokes a feeling of luxurious living. They also make use of stunning aerial videos posted throughout their website that gives readers an idea of how beautiful the island is.
After perusing through their website, you’ll want to buy a beach house and golf every day – even if you don’t know how to play. Overall, the breathtaking visuals and descriptive wording make you feel as if you’re missing out if you’re not living on Kiawah Island yourself.
Allbirds
This shoe company sells high-quality tennis shoes that come in trendy colors. The voice they use is seen as genuine, helpful, and imaginative. The visuals on their website are creative photos and graphics that illustrate their shoe’s design features. Their ‘Our Story’ section is interesting to read – with a video of sheep roaming through a field to highlight their shoes being made of wool.
Allbirds’ visually pleasing website will tempt you to buy a new pair of shoes. Based off of the information they provide, you know Allbirds shoes are high in quality and comfortable to wear.
Magnolia by Joanna Gaines
Joanna Gaines has created an empire under the Magnolia name. Her voice is known for being down-to-earth, approachable, warm, and wholesome. These qualities are also seen in her design style and home decor items. Joanna stays true to her Texas roots, which is apparent in her home design style and consumer products.
Browsing through Magnolia’s content will leave inspired and motivate you to redecorate your entire home with farmhouse decor – even if you live in a high rise in New York City.
TED
TED is a nonprofit company known for its world-renowned conferences known as TEDTalks. Videos of their talks are extremely popular online, with most videos reaching several million views.
The organization and individual speakers use a voice that is educational, trustworthy, and intelligent. The tone used is overall playful, although it mainly depends on the speaker.
During this process of building your brand’s personality, focus on how you want consumers to see you. From there, follow our tips for adding personality to your brand in order to cement how consumers will see your company. If you’re looking for more ways to grow your brand, check out our 30 Lead Generation Tips, Tricks, and Ideas Guide that will help increase your lead generation efforts.
